Runaway
by MetalCloud
Summary: What Sirius was thinking when he ran away from home, and what led him to this drastic action. Songfic. Please read and review.


A/N: I'm aware I say this at the beginning of every fic, but this one really _is_ crap. I'm not quite sure why I feel the need to force it on you innocent people, but there you have it. I'm just a sadist.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. At all. My dad bought the computer I wrote this on, my dad still _owns_ the computer I'm uploading this from; my dad even owns the chair I'm sitting on. I don't own Sirius. But I wish I did. Oh, the fun we would have…sorry. Got caught up in a daydream there. Anyway. I don't own the song either. I don't even have it on CD or anything. I just heard it playing in a shop somewhere, thought 'this is Sirius!' and went and found it on the Internet. I don't even know whom it belongs to. All I know is it's not me. All I own is a complete set of (very tatty) Harry Potter books. And if you try to take them away from me, I will rip your arm off and beat you to death with the bloody end.

See. Sadist.

Runaway

_I've got my things packed  
My favourite pillow  
Got my sleeping bag  
Climb out the window  
All the pictures and pain  
I left behind  
All the freedom and fame  
I've gotta find_

Sirius Black took a deep breath, his grip on his trunk tightening. Everything was there, right down to the sleeping bag strapped to the top, and, he almost smiled at the thought, his favourite pillow from when he was young.

Taking another breath, he unhooked the catch on the window and slowly edged his trunk out over the sill, down the wall, and onto the floor on the enchanted rope it was secured to tightly.

_Thank you, James_, he thought, and this time a smile did make its way across his face. James had no idea of his plans, yet he always seemed to know what Sirius needed. Who else would give him the birthday gift of rope that would never break, no matter how much weight was suspended on it?

_And I wonder  
How long it'll take them to notice that I'm gone  
And I wonder  
How far it'll take me  
To run away  
(It don't make any sense to me)  
Run away  
(This life makes no sense to me)  
Run away  
(It don't make any sense to me)  
Run away  
(It don't make any sense to me)_

With a precise flick of his wrist, the knot around the trunk undid itself, and Sirius pulled the rope back up. Tying one end around his waist, and the other to the bedpost, he placed one foot on the windowsill. Taking one last look at the room he had lived in for the last sixteen years, giving the posters of the bikini-clad muggle girls a cheeky wave, he lowered himself down the wall.

As he made his descent, he wondered idly how long it would take before someone noticed he was gone. Probably not until breakfast. He stayed in his room most of the time during the holidays, and it wouldn't be until Kreacher was sent to bring him down to breakfast that anyone would raise the alarm.

His mother would pitch a fit, he was sure. Not because she would be upset, but because…well, he wasn't quite sure why. She was always upset about something.

_I was just trying to be myself  
Have it your way I'll meet you in hell  
It's all these secrets that I shouldn't tell  
I've got to run away  
It's hypocritical of you  
Do as you say not as you do  
I'll never be your perfect boy  
I've got to run away_

As he hit the ground, he frowned at that. It wasn't completely true, after all. His mother wasn't always upset about something. She was always angry with _him_. Especially since he'd been sorted into Gryffindor. There was no way he could ever please her, short of demanding to be resorted into Slytherin, shunning his friends, and completely restructuring his personality. She might accept him as her son then.

Well tough.

No, he was not going to be doing any of that any time soon. He'd never be anywhere close to perfect in her eyes. He remembered bitterly when his OWL results had arrived earlier this summer holiday. All O's and E's. He had shown them to his parents; in the foolish hope that maybe they'd be proud of him. Just a little. Stupid. His father had glanced at them for about two seconds before returning to his paper. His mother had sneered at him and said, "_Your brother could do far better_."

He'd snapped at that. A red haze had clouded his vision and he'd shouted, "_He bloody well _couldn't_ and you know it!_"

The fight that had followed had been…awful. He'd never seen his mother get that furious at him. Even his father had joined in. As he'd stood there, his parents screaming abuse at him, letting it wash over him, having become desensitised to it over the years, that was when he finally realised what had been building up for ages.

He had to leave.

_I'm too young to be  
Taken seriously  
But I'm too old to believe  
All this hypocrisy  
And I wonder  
How long it'll take them to see my bed is made  
And I wonder  
If I was a mistake  
I might have nowhere left to go  
But I know that I cannot go home  
These words are trapped inside my head  
Tell me to run before I'm dead  
Chase the rainbows in my mind  
And I will try to stay alive  
Maybe the world will know one day  
Why won't you help me run away  
_

He wasn't a child anymore. He didn't believe all the rubbish his parents spouted daily about pureblood supremacy. Couldn't even try to anymore. On the other hand, he was too young for any of his family to even consider that he might have something valid to say. If he tried to contradict them, they'd ignore or laugh at him. His cousins were the worst for that, although his parents were pretty good at it too.

He sometimes thought that he probably was a mistake. His family didn't want him, and he didn't belong with them. He'd been born into the wrong family by accident, and there wasn't anything any of them could do about it. If only they'd helped him, helped him be happy, or even helped him get away, maybe he wouldn't have been reduced to these drastic measures.

As he marched down the road, away from his house, rolling his motorbike alongside him, it occurred to him that he had nowhere to go at all. Not that it mattered. He couldn't go home, that was for sure. He could never go back to that house.

_  
It don't make any sense to me  
Run away  
This life makes no sense to me  
Run away  
_

Stopping at the end of the road, he sighed and leant against his bike. What was he going to do? He hadn't really thought about that. His plan had been well thought out and detailed, but it had only really involved getting out of the house without being caught. If he was totally honest, he hadn't really believed it would work; yet it had gone off without a hitch. So now what? There was still three weeks until Hogwarts started again. He couldn't live on the streets until then. But he couldn't go home. He couldn't –

Home? Number twelve Grimmauld Place wasn't his home. But he knew where was.

An hour and a half later, Sirius Black arrived on the front lawn of the house belonging to James Potter and his parents. They all came hurrying out, looking worried. A boy on a flying motorcycling arriving in one's garden in the middle of the night will do that. When they realised it was Sirius, they crowded around him, Mr Potter questioning what he was doing there and James asking what was wrong. Mrs Potter however, shoved both her husband and her son out of the way, and promptly dragged Sirius inside, where she sat him down at the kitchen table, and bustled about making him soup.

"You must be starving, dear," she said fondly, as she placed the bowl of steaming liquid in front of him. James sat down next to him, still looking rather concerned.

"Yeah, and you're freezing. You all right, mate? Did something bad happen?"

What a question. Yes, something bad happened. According to his parents, he'd been sorted into the wrong house and made the wrong friends. According to him, he'd been born into the wrong family. But that was all rather large stuff, and he suspected James meant in the immediate present. He smiled.

"No," he said. "Nothing bad's happened tonight."

And he was telling the truth. Tonight, he'd left his parents house. Tonight, he'd come home. 

A/N: Now. I need feedback. This is my first songfic. So, see that little button there? Oooh, what does this button do… Oh come on. You know you're all thinking it.


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